NEWS: In Gaza, hopes for a better life under Hamas rule have turned into frustration and disappointment. Israel says it will be disciplining the soldier who was documented to have struck a Danish pro-Palestinian activist in the face with his rifle. PM Fayyad meets with the assaulted Danish activist. UN officials condemn Israel's eviction of a Palestinian family from their home in occupied East Jerusalem in favor of settlers. Fatah officials blame Hamas for the impasse in national unity negotiations. Journalist turned politician Yair Lapid says he'd be willing to serve in an Israeli coalition cabinet. Israeli settlers are building new outposts on privately-owned Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. Jewish-American lawmakers are unhappy with a Justice Department ruling regarding the difficulties of prosecuting Palestinians who allegedly killed Americans outside the United States. The US Supreme Court rules that Palestinian-Americans cannot sue the PA and PLO for alleged abuse in custody in the occupied territories. The Grand Mufti of Egypt is making a rare visit to Jerusalem. COMMENTARY: Ha'aretz says the Israeli public is in the grip of a terrifying apathy. Israel Harel says the soldier disciplined for striking the Danish activist is a scapegoat for the failings of the senior command. Ofer Shelah says the assault just shows the extent to which Israel doesn't know what to do with the occupied territories. The Jerusalem Post says Israelis were unrealistic to think that the UK would be harsher on Palestinian activist Raed Salah than Israel, of which he is a citizen. Salah explains why he went to the UK in the first place. Jonathan Rosen says Holocaust analogies and other exaggerations are allowing fear to drive Israeli policies. David Wilensky says Title VI should not be used to squelch free speech on campuses. Michael Young says the shadow of another possible Israel-Hezbollah war looms over southern Lebanon. Michael Jansen says, despite the risks, dissolving the PA could be a dramatic “game changer” between Israel and the Palestinians. Shibley Telhami looks at the Arab and Israeli dimensions of the controversy over Iran's nuclear program.

The Israeli and Arab Dimensions of Iran's Nuclear Program
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Brookings
by Shibley Telhami - (Analysis) April 10, 2012 - 12:00am

Suzanne Maloney draws attention to many important angles of the international crisis over Iran’s nuclear program and America’s policy choices. But there are also others for Washington to consider—namely, the Israeli and Arab dimensions. Here are ten brief points for the next president to reflect on.

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Game changer
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jordan Times
by Michael Jansen - (Opinion) April 18, 2012 - 12:00am

While Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas does not intend to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, he has, at long last, admitted that the body, created under the flawed and defunct 1993 Oslo accords, has no authority. Abbas rightly blamed Israel for the failure of the “Oslo process” and said Israel stripped the Palestinian Authority of any “meaningful jurisdiction in the political, economic, territorial and security spheres”.

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Shadow of another war hangs over southern Lebanon border
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Michael Young - (Opinion) April 19, 2012 - 12:00am

The negotiations in Turkey over Iran's nuclear programme last weekend were not particularly high in the attentions of the Lebanese living along their country's southern frontier with Israel. And yet if Iran is one day attacked militarily because the talks have failed, the Marjayoun-Hasbayya district will probably again become a front line in a destructive confrontation between Hizbollah and the Israelis.

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Title VI should be used only on true hatemongers, not political opponents
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
by David. A.M. Wilensky - (Opinion) April 18, 2012 - 12:00am

NEW YORK (JTA) – In the eyes of the Zionist Organization of America, the most depraved enemies of the Jewish people are obnoxious college campus loudmouths. As the editor of New Voices, a national magazine by and for Jewish college students, I have a different perspective. The ZOA led the campaign to have discrimination against Jewish students recognized as a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, originally passed in 1964 to remedy racial discrimination in programs that receive federal funding. But in its charge to circle the Jewish communal wagons, the ZOA has overreached.

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Foreign policy in shadow of Holocaust
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Jonathan Rosen - (Opinion) April 18, 2012 - 12:00am

Holocaust Remembrance Day presents Israelis with an opportunity to rise above their mundane pursuits and trivial concerns to honor the memory of the victims and survivors of the Nazi death machine. No less importantly, this day is an occasion for Israeli citizens, both as individuals and as members of broader communities, to reflect on the enduring mesh of personal, national and universal lessons that are to be drawn from the Holocaust.

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Britain's duty to the Palestinian people
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Raed Salah - (Opinion) April 18, 2012 - 12:00am

In June 2011 I came to Britain to begin a speaking tour to draw attention to the plight of my people, the Palestinian citizens of Israel. The tour was meant to last 10 days. Instead I had to stay for 10 months in order to resist an attempt by the home secretary, Theresa May, to deport me – itself the result of a smear campaign against me and what I represent. I fought not just for my own sake, but for all who are smeared because they support the Palestinian cause.

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Raed Salah’s return
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
(Editorial) April 18, 2012 - 12:00am

Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement’s Northern Branch and an Israeli Arab convicted Hamas collaborator, arrived back to a hero’s welcome Monday after 10 months under restrictive bail conditions in the UK, during which he fought and defeated a deportation order. Some 300 supporters hailed him at Ben-Gurion Airport with earsplitting chants of “Allahu Akhbar.”

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Israeli Officer's Aggression Worsens 'Impossible Situation'
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Yedioth Ahronoth
by Ofer Shelah - (Opinion) April 17, 2012 - 12:00am

The IDF's upper echelon first learned of the assault on the Danish peace activist by Shalom Eisner, the deputy commander of the Jordan Valley Brigade, when the video clip showing the IDF officer striking the Danish protester with his M16 rifle was uploaded to the Internet Saturday, April 15, around 7:30 pm.

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Israel's army sacrificed IDF officer on the altar of PR
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Israel Harel - (Opinion) April 19, 2012 - 12:00am

"You shouldn't join the chorus of rabbis and politicians who are trying to make Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner's case into one that divides the religious and the secular, and the left from the right," B. begged me. B.'s views are well considered and highly regarded. From his point of view, the media lynching of Eisner, after a recording surfaced on the Internet of a confrontation in which the officer hit a Danish activist in the face, has engendered precisely the opposite reaction - a natural sense of empathy with Eisner that cuts across various communities.

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